City prayers

In a lecture on the communion of saints, the Baptist preacher
Carlyle Marney said that each of us is like a house. In the house is a
living room where we entertain and a dark basement where we store the
trash. And, Marney said, each house has a balcony with all the people
who have influenced and inspired us. They are our saints. The way to
celebrate All Saints Day, he said, is to step out onto the front lawn
and salute the people on your balcony.

One of my balcony people
died recently. Ernest T. Campbell was a Presbyterian pastor in Oregon,
Pennsylvania and Michigan prior to becoming senior minister at
Riverside Church in New York.